It is well known that tubulars and equipment and components used in oil and gas production and completion are exposed to corrosive environments. Corrosive environments include various acidic environments associated with completion and production. For example, stimulation treatments consist of a variety of possible fluid systems designed to treat oil or gas wells by means of acidizing and/or fracturing in order to maximize production and return on investment. For example, acidizing is used to increase production in many situations. These include damage removal, completion and stimulation of horizontal wells, acid washing, matrix acidizing, fracture acidizing and gel breaking. In another example, production fluids are usually a mixture of liquid hydrocarbons, gas, and possibly water and other impurities, and may contain acid gases (CO2 and H2S) and brines of various salinities. In such environments, metal tubulars and other metal equipment and components will corrode, even those made from various stainless steels, highly alloyed specialty steels and steels with high Ni contents, including Ni-based superalloys. While the rate at which corrosion will occur depends on a number of factors such as the metallurgical composition, chemical nature of the corrosive agent, salinity, pH, temperature, flow rate, etc., some sort of corrosion almost inevitably occurs. One way to mitigate this problem consists of using corrosion inhibitors in the hydrocarbon production system.
It is known in the art that the corrosion of metal tubulars and other metal equipment and components, including the steel alloys described above, can be inhibited by treating them with corrosion inhibitors, including, for example, various oil soluble, water soluble or water-dispersible nitrogen-containing, phosphorus-containing or sulfur-containing corrosion inhibitors, or combinations thereof. While useful, corrosion inhibitors do not perform acceptably in all corrosive environments e.g. severe applications such as high shear and high flow rate environments.
In view of the wide variety of corrosive environments encountered in the completion and production arts, other solutions that may be used to mitigate corrosion in these environments are highly desirable, including those that may be used on a stand-alone basis or together with known corrosion inhibitors and methods of inhibiting corrosion.